Of Squashed Bananas and Burnt Toast
by Clear Plastic
Summary: A five-year-old Edmund and an eight-year-old Peter attempt to make their mother breakfast for her birthday. Humor fic.


**Author's Note: **I'd like to thank **garnetred** and **xcupcakex **reviewing **_The Amulet_**. The other anonymous readers, I thank you too! Your reviews are greatly appreciated!! :) On with the one-shot!

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It was six in the morning.

Peter and Edmund were giggling madly, running down the stairs the their matching teddy bear pyjamas, trying to be as quiet as possible, and failing miserably.

'I can't wait until I see Mother's face!' Peter said gleefully, chubby cheeks widening as he smiled.

'Don't forget to tell her that I helped too!' Edmund nudged his older brother indignantly.

They reached the kitchens, pushing open the wooden door and falling over each other eagerly.

'I'll be in charge.' Peter announced bossily, and his chest puffed out.

'No fair!' Edmund pouted. 'Why do you always get to be the leader?'

'Because I'm older.' Peter scoffed, pulling a chair out from the dining table and placed it in front of the stoves. He clambered up the chair. 'I need you to be my assistant, Ed.'

Edmund perked up considerable at having a fairly important sounding title, even though he hadn't the faintest idea what 'assistant' meant.

'Now… what does Mother like to eat for breakfast?' Peter posed his question, looking around the kitchen thoughtfully.

'I know! Toast with marmalade and fruits. Coffee and wiffles. Eggs too. Mother's going to be ever so excited, with Father being away at America.'

'Waffles, Ed.' Peter corrected, and he reached out as far as he possibly could to pull open a cupboard door. 'I'll get the waffle-maker and you get me two eggs.' Peter instructed, and Edmund immediately went over to the large, humming refrigerator that stood in the corner of their kitchen. He pulled open the door and cold air seeped out. Edmund lifted his head slightly and saw that the eggs were too high for him to reach, way up on the egg tray where their mother always kept them.

Not wanting to seem like a baby in front of Peter, he stood on his tiptoes and his chubby fingers wiggled desperately, and closed around the smooth surface of an egg. He pulled, and it came tumbling down.

_Splat._

The egg yolk and egg whites splattered all over Edmund's exposed feet and he gave a squeal.

'What's wrong?' came his brother's muffled voice, and Edmund saw that he was still looking for the waffle-maker in the cupboards.

'Nothing!' Edmund said hurriedly, and side-stepped the gooey mess. He reached out for another egg, and safely carried down two. He closed the refrigerator shut and placed them beside the stove, deciding to tell Peter about the broken egg later.

'Found it!' Peter withdrew from the cupboard, hands gripping a heavy waffle-maker, their mothers' prized possession.

'Be careful with that, Pete.' Edmund said frantically, thinking about how much trouble they would be in if they broke it.

'I'm-- being-- careful!' Peter grunted, and he put it beside the stove too, with much difficulty.

'Now you have to plug it in!' Edmund clapped his hands excitedly.

'I know!' came his brother's irritated reply, and he wiped his hands fervently on his pyjamas, thinking about their mothers' frequent warnings about electric shocks. He looked around for a socket and gingerly placed the plug at the mouth of the socket. He pushed… and it slid in effortlessly.

Peter was so exhilarated that he forgot to flip the switch on.

'I did it!' he raised his fists in the air in triumph, enjoying the admiring glances that his little brother gave him.

'Now, the batter. What're the ingredients?'

There was silence while the two brothers thought about what waffles were made of.

'I don't know.' Edmund finally admitted, and he crossed his arms.

'We'll just have to-- improvise, then.' Peter stumbled over the difficult word. 'How about eggs, water and flour?' he had a vague memory of his mother pouring golden batter into the waffle-maker.

Edmund shrugged and went to get more eggs. Peter hunted around for that mysterious flour, hunting high and low. He eventually found an aluminum tin full of powder, and brought it down delightedly. Alas, he failed to notice the _Fern's Baby Milk Powder_ label attached onto the tin, the very same powder their mother used to feed baby Lucy.

Peter grabbed a nearby bowl and poured the powdery substance into it, scattering some on the kitchen tabletop in the process. He filled a cup full of water from the nearest tap and emptied its contents into the powder.

'I could use the eggs now, Ed!' Peter called out, and he used his baby finger to mix the contents of the bowl idly.

Edmund walked over, three eggs in his hands. Peter grabbed one and tried to crack it on the side of the bowl, imitating his mother. It did crack, but all over his hands.

'Ew.' Edmund exclaimed, giggling. Peter spread his fingers and the egg yolk dripped down slowly. Peter wiped it on the tabletop carelessly, and reached for another egg. He tried it with two hands but this time most of the shell went in, though Peter didn't seem to mind.

He cracked a third one. In that went.

'I'll go get a spoon!' Edmund pulled out drawers, searching for a wooden spoon. He found it and handed it to Peter and watched his older brother in action.

Peter mixed furiously, and countless soggy splatters covered the front of his pyjamas. He was done. The batter didn't look as golden as he expected it to, but it would do.

'Open the waffle maker, Ed.' Peter picked up the heavy bowl, and Edmund quickly lifted up the cover of the electrical appliance. Peter poured the 'batter' in, and quickly snapped the lid shut. Some oozed out and dripped all over the tabletop.

'You make the toast, and I make the eggs.'

Edmund hopped away, looking for some bread in the bread box nearby. He fished out two floppy pieces and placed them in the shiny chrome toaster's two openings. He remembered his mother saying something about liking her toast extra crispy. He leaned over to look at the side of the toaster and twisted the plastic dial up. He turned on the toaster's switch and pushed down the lever, and watched, fascinated, as the wires beside the bread heated up and turned red. The heat warmed Edmund's cold face. He could distinctly hear Peter busily cracking eggs. He leaned closer and closer…

The bread was ejected out, and Edmund let out a shrill scream. He could feel something on his forehead and he swatted at his head. He could feel something singeing and he was sure that it was his eyebrow.

He turned his attention away from his eyebrows and saw that the toast was smoking, and burnt black. _Well, _Edmund reasoned with himself with the simplicity of a five-year-old, _Mother always did like her toast extra-crispy. _He picked the toast up with his bare fingers and yelped, the heat stinging his fingers.

'What's wrong?' Peter looked up from his eggs, his front completely drenched in egg bits. He was whisking a bowl of eggs.

'Nothing,' Edmund said for the second time that morning. He sucked on his fingers for a moment before using a fork to pick up both pieces of toast and placing them on a china plate. Edmund's stomach suddenly grumbled, and he looked longingly at the charred bread. Edmund got out another piece of bread, and placed it in the toaster. Then, he got out a bottle of his mother's favorite marmalade.

Try as he could, he couldn't twist open the top of the bottle of marmalade. Edmund grunted and with one last tug, the cap of the marmalade abruptly flew open and zoomed across the room. Edmund could feel marmalade hit his face.

'Eughh! He wiped his face furiously, though it still felt sticky.

'It's only marmalade, it'll come off.' Peter said, giggling at his brother's now orange face.

Edmund was so incensed by this that he simply turned the marmalade jar over and dumped the sticky stuff onto Mother's toast.

'There, I'm done. Faster than you!' Edmund stuck out his tongue childishly.

'I need some help with frying the eggs.' Peter held a wooden spatula awkwardly in his hands. Edmund climbed up the chair beside Peter.

'Pour the eggs in,' Peter instructed, and he did. Only, the eggs didn't sizzle like they did when their mother did it, for they hadn't turned on the stove. The eggs simply flowed around in the pan. Peter and Edmund honestly thought they were cooking, though, and they had great fun doing it.

After a few minutes, Edmund said, 'They still look the same.'

Peter couldn't deny this. 'Maybe its some sort of new and different egg?'

They both shrugged and poured it back into a new plate anyway.

'Now, the coffee.' Peter rubbed his filthy hands together rather nervously. After a bad experience with hot water a few years prior, Peter had long since had a sort of fear towards anything hot. So they compensated by using cold water, instead.

Needless to say, the coffee powder sank to the bottom of the water and stayed there. No matter how much Peter stirred, it simply wouldn't mix with the water surrounding it.

'Never mind,' Edmund had said. 'We've got enough to feed Mother, anyway.'

They arranged everything they had made in a fancy tray. They had put the runny waffles in a bowl. They carried it, wobbling, upstairs, and Edmund conveniently forgot about the toast he had made a few minutes ago.

'I want to be the one who show it to Mother!' Edmund argued, tugging the tray out of Peter's unrelenting hands.

'I'm older, I should be the one!' Peter said back, whipping the tray out of Edmund's grasp.

They quieted when they neared their mothers' door, and Edmund looked at their food proudly. Waffles, coffee, toast, eggs…

Edmund's eyes widened when he remembered something.

'Peter, the fruit!' he whispered urgently, grabbing his forearm. The tray swayed dangerously.

'Go get something, then!'

Edmund rushed down the stairs, stumbling slightly and grabbed a banana from the fruit tray. While running up the stairs, he dropped it and accidentally stepped on it. He felt the mushy fruit squish beneath his toes and he picked it up, heart thumping. The fruit seemed to be okay, and he rushed upstairs to meet Peter.

* * *

Helen Pevensie turned over in her warm, comfortable bed, sighing. She could hear faint giggles and laughs coming from downstairs. She frowned in her sleep, willing the voice to stop. They did, eventually, and Helen slept again. It was Sunday morning, and she wanted to get as much sleep as she could before Lucy woke up and started bawling.

She stirred again when she heard whispering, louder this time, and the clink of china.

She opened one eye just in time to see both her sons burst into the room, Peter carrying a messy tray full of something. She got a shock so bad she let out a small scream.

'Happy birthday, Mother!' Edmund and Peter chorused, and thrust the tray out at her.

Helen Pevensie stared at them, fearing for their sanities.

_Oh, _she thought rather groggily. _Today _is _my birthday, isn't it?_ Her thirty-eighth, to be exact, but Helen would rather not.

'Boys! What're you doing up so early!' she struggled up, and wiped her eyes blearily.

'We made you breakfast, Mother!' Peter said, and showed her the tray. Helen was surprised and she felt a warm rush of love for her two young sons. 'Oh, you shouldn't have.' she gave both of them a well-deserved hug. 'Well, what have you made me?'

Helen's stomach had rumbled at the mention of breakfast, but her appetite screamed and ran away in the other direction when she saw what her two young sons had concocted.

Some charred brown lumps with something orange splattered on top which Helen assumed was toast, a mug of cold water with something indiscernible at the bottom, something thick and gloppy that distinctly smelt like milk powder, and raw eggs. The only thing that looked even slightly edible was a lone banana, and even that looked rather squashed.

Peter and Edmund scrambled up on her bed and started jumping around, giggling at their success.

Helen stared.

'My… this looks… delicious!' Helen tried to summon up some enthusiasm. She picked up the toast and it crumbled in her hands. Her eyes watered at the smoky scent. She gingerly took a bite.

If it wasn't for Peter and Edmund's hopeful expressions, she would've spat it right out and scraped her tongue and doused it in Dettol later. It tasted like ashes; the whole thing crumbled. She forced herself to swallow.

'Does it taste good?' Edmund asked, eyes shining.

'It's mouth-watering.' Helen said, and she hugged Edmund's small frame, feeling very teary.

She was in the middle of slurping her 'coffee' with Peter and Edmund watching when she smelt something acrid in the air.

Her nostrils twitched. 'What's that smell?'

Peter looked bemused while Edmund looked rather horror-struck, as though he had just remembered something.

Helen pushed away her bedcovers and padded downstairs in her slippers, heading towards the kitchen.

She pushed open the door and stopped short, good mood vanishing like her once-clean kitchen. The walls were splattered with something orange, there was batter all over the floor, cracked eggs here and there, some water spilt and her waffle-maker was outside of its cupboard. There was smoke rising out of her brand new toaster.

She sucked in her breath.

'PETER!! EDMUND!!'

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**Author's Note: **I hope you liked it! XD


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